The God Who Suffers With Us

I'm learning more each day that I am not called to live the American Dream. For most of my life I have wanted nothing more to get married, have kids, build a house with a picket fence, and go through life as a nice little Christian girl. I want to have a good reputation. I want to be looked up to. I want to be needed. And I want to throw Jesus in, although He won't really need to save me because I'll be perfect.

This is probably why I am so devastated when things don't go on perfectly. This is why I have been trying to avoid real life and stay in my little bubble. Yet God is popping my bubble and throwing struggle and suffering right in my face till I run away terrified because this is movie material, not my life.

As I flea, blinded by tears, I bump into my Father "It is scary isn't it?" He asks, "But this is life. This is what real people go through and I didn't call you to hide from it, I called you to meet it head on." Jesus' life wasn't behind a picket fence, it was on the front lines fighting for souls-- this is how He calls us to live.

This life is a struggle. There is a battle going on between the flesh and the spirit. Christ secured victory in the cross and we are experiencing His grace daily in His peace, however, this world is still in turmoil and will be until Christ returns to re-create it. We need to stop running away from affliction. During His time on earth, Christ willingly took on the suffering of others, meeting with those in the poorest conditions physically, emotionally, and spiritually. People who many of us would just ignore because they are "too much" and make us uncomfortable. But Jesus loved them and took on their pain and sin, bearing it on the cross. Christ suffered more than any of us, as imitators of Him we must not expect anything less than suffering. This starts when we stop beautifying the cross and understand it as the agony that it was. Jesus was beaten and slain by His countrymen, He was denied and abandoned by friends, He had His legitimacy questioned,  and His Father rejected Him. He suffered these things in love.

It would be easy for me to just avoid the human struggle I am witnessing. It would be easy to relax in the comfort of my happy home. To tuck myself away to build my good little image that is free of scars and weathering. But if I do, I can't confess to Christ that I really, really need Him and that, in actuality, I am doing a horrible job of being perfect. And if I hide away, I will miss an opportunity to join my Savior in loving hard people who need Him just as much as I do.

The picket fence looks nice, I really do love to hear those cheery kids giggle, and my husband kissing my cheek as I bake a pie sounds perfect. But I would much rather be where Jesus is.

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ."-- Philippians 3:7-8